


Red Shift, or, A Season 8 Klance Coda

by TheNarwhal380



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-12 00:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20162974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNarwhal380/pseuds/TheNarwhal380
Summary: Lance is living a tranquil life alone on his own farm, looking after his animals and spreading a message of universal peace, when his Altean marks start acting strangely.  Then something comes along to shake up his tranquility.  (Spoiler: it's Keith.)--The story is set a couple of years after Season 8, and is meant to be canon-compliant.  If you were hoping Voltron would finish with a Klance endgame, this story could be for you. :-)  There'll be 5 parts, about 10K words.





	1. Chapter 1

I can feel a storm coming.

It's an ache in my left knee and right shoulder and a tightness across my cheekbones. It's how I know I'm really a farmer now, I can tell these things. Well, it's probably a storm. What else would it be? How do old-timey farmers know for sure?

The sun's almost down, casting long shadows across the field that stretches from the porch to the fence by the road. I should check on the farm, see if the animals are restless. Make sure everything's battened down.

I sit and rock for a few minutes more. The cheekbone tightness is actually getting a bit painful now -- did I whack myself in the face earlier with the hoe and not notice? -- and when I bring my hand up to check, the shadow it casts is lit with a pulsing blue light. My Altean marks must be glowing. Weird.

But sitting here poking them won't get anything done. I push myself out of the chair, and go check on Kaltenecker.

##

I actually check on Kaltenecker last. Sorting out the goats comes first, making sure the door to the second barn and the gates leading to it are open. I don't herd the goats -- can goats even be herded? I've definitely never managed to -- but they'll come in if they're afraid of the storm. Definitely smarter than sheep. I wouldn't say that out loud around any sheep, of course. Not that they'd understand me, but I'd feel like I was giving off some negative vibes that they might pick up on. It could undermine their confidence. But the goats don't seem anxious at the moment, and there's no sign of those gusts that whip up the leaves before a downpour. So maybe it's nothing, but everything's all ready in case there is a storm about to hit. Then there are the other fences to check, and the greenhouse, and the orchard. And Hetty and Letty and Betty and their sister chickens, all settled down for the night in their coop.

And now I'm sitting in the dark barn with Kaltenecker. She's totally placid, not worried at all. I don't switch on the main light, so there's just the small covered door light, and my Altean marks pulsing in time with my heartbeat. They don't normally do that. It gives a kind of eerie glow to Kaltenecker's head, but she's just chewing away at her feed and occasionally butting against my hand resting on the gate of her stall. I leave the light off and sit and think of the Castle of Lions and milkshakes and Allura.

##

The next morning there hasn't been a storm, or even any rain at all. I poke the ground of the front yard with the toe of my boot as I'm drinking the last of my coffee: dry as a bone. I guess it was my imagination yesterday.

My farmhand Jack is a few minutes later than usual in arriving. Jack Russell, tall and farmer-tanned and silent, just like a farmhand should be, and not at all small and yappy like the dog breed he shares a name with. I wave to him as I head off in my truck.

The kids I'm talking to today are all pretty young, about my nephew Silvio's age. Their teacher is rounding them up as I arrive, steering a couple of stragglers away from a distractingly friendly dog and towards the giant blanket on the ground where they'll all be sitting. I go stand next to the juniberry bush that I'll use as a prop, as I do every time when I tell them about Allura and her dream, her message of peace. I can do the whole thing pretty much without thinking about it now.

At the end, as usual, I get questions.

One small girl: "Are you an Altean like Princess Allura?"

No, I tell her, I was born on Earth. The Altean marks were a gift from Allura.

The boy next to her: "Can we get them as a gift too?"

No, I say, but she would have wanted you to have these apples as a gift. I haul out the basket of apples I'd bartered for with a neighbour, in exchange for a block of goat cheese, and hand them around. They're always handy for the point when questions get tricky.

##

As I'm driving my truck through my front gate, I see that there's someone sitting in the rocking chair on my porch. It's not Jack -- he never sits in my chair, and he'd be home by now anyway. As I get closer, it resolves itself into a familiar figure. Well, sort of familiar. It's been almost two years, I guess, since I've seen any of the Voltron crew. And he looks different, somehow.

"Keith," I say.

He stands. I think he's bigger than he used to be, like the kind of change when he came out of the Quantum Abyss, where two years had passed for him and only a short time for the rest of us; but he's still serious, still Keith-like. "Lance." He puts out his hand to shake. "How are things?"

We sound very grown up. I could tell him about the current market price for goat cheese, or this season's drier than usual weather. I don't. "Good. You?"

"Good." He fidgets a bit, un-Keith-like.

"What brings you out here?"

"Coran and his new Castle of Lions."

"I didn't mean literally what brought you here." I remember Coran was building one, and even saw it half-constructed the last time everyone was together.

Keith rolls his eyes. That's more Keith-like. "No, that's actually the reason. Coran will be here tomorrow, and he'll explain everything then. His new Castle -- it's experimental, an attempt to try to understand what was lost with the original Castle of Lions -- it's been behaving a bit strangely, and we think it's been giving us a warning about something. You know that Coran's alchemy isn't very strong," -- he's leaning forward here, half-whispering, even though only Hetty could be listening in, and she's busy pecking at corn in the front yard -- "and we thought, you know, Lance has these Altean marks, and we don't know what they can do, and maybe it could help. Maybe."

I'm pretty doubtful. "So far they just kind of glow. That's about it." And throb a bit sometimes, for unclear reasons.

"Well, you never know. Coran knows more about this than I do, obviously." Keith bends down to pick up a small dull red box next to the rocking chair. "Here. This is for you."

"You brought me a present?"

He fidgets again. "No, it's from Veronica."

"My sister?"

"With how many other Veronicas would I use just their first name when I'm talking to you? Yes, your sister. I see her sometimes at the Galaxy Garrison."

I open the box. Whatever's inside is the same dull red as the box. Rubbery. I lift it out. "What is it?"

"It looks like a whoopie cushion."

"A whoopie cushion? Why would Veronica get me a whoopie cushion?"

"You know, Lance and fart jokes, they're practically synonymous." He mumbles something more.

"What was that?"

"You used to, you know, have a sense of humour. It was annoying, mostly. But funny. Sometimes."

"What?! I'm funny. Why did the Galran cross the road?" I forget the punchline. "Why did he, huh? To be a pain in the butt."

"Hmm. Maybe a bit more polishing before a career in stand-up."

"Geez, you're such a quiznak."

Keith laughs. I wonder when the last time I heard him laugh was.

##

For dinner I scramble some eggs, and cook rice with fresh jalapenos and black beans from a tin. I plate up the meal for Keith, and then sit down in the dinner table's other chair with my own plate. We eat in silence for a few minutes.

"This is pretty good," says Keith. "You've learned how to cook."

"Yeah, it's not really Hunk-level quality."

"Tasty, though." Then there's a sharp intake of breath, in-out-in-out through pursed lips. "Hot."

"What? They're just jalapenos, you baby." I look at Keith's face, and there is actually a flush creeping upwards from his neck. I pass him a glass of water, and he quickly gulps it down. I notice something else that's different about him. "I just realized, you've had a haircut." It looks more like Shiro's now, short back and sides and longer on top. At least, like Shiro's before his went all white.

"Yeah. Thought it was time for a change."

"You sure you didn't just lop it all off with the porch shears so I wouldn't call out your mullet and you'd be like, ooh, savage?"

Keith seems a bit offended. "It looks like I used sheep shears on it?"

"Well, I thought maybe it was something you'd picked up. Cutting your own hair with whatever's available."

"No."

There are a few more minutes of silence.

"It doesn't look bad, you know."

"Whatever," Keith mumbles.

##

Coran will be arriving in the morning. I go and check the spare room is ready for Keith. When I switch on the light I notice a layer of dust on the dresser. Who last stayed here? Mom? Marco? No idea how long ago that would have been.

I grab a T-shirt from the first drawer, quickly wipe off the dust, then chuck the shirt into the corridor for later washing.

Keith is still in the shower. I bang loudly on the bathroom door to be heard over the volume of the water. "Hey! It's a farm here! No long showers." I bang some more.

Keith opens the door, a towel around his waist. Steam billows out. "What?"

Huh. He's pretty buff now. Again, like when he came back from the Quantum Abyss. I wonder if there was a gym in the Quantum Abyss. Maybe he went to the gym there with his mom -- she has pretty awesome fighting skills she'd want to keep up -- and maybe Keith spent his time working out and at the same time catching up with her on all those years he'd missed of them together, and finding out about his Galra heritage. And doing push-ups.

"What?" Keith repeats.

"What what?"

"What were you banging on the door for?"

"Oh, yeah. Can't have long showers on a farm like this, it's pretty dry here. You've used up, like, a whole week's worth of showers. So it'll be just splashing your face with water and using clouds of body spray for the next week." Not that he'll be staying a week. "Heh, just kidding. But yeah, not too much water."

"Oh. Sorry." Keith closes the door, and the shower doesn't go back on.

##

I'm lying in my bed, not sleeping. Having Keith in the next room makes me realize how quiet my life has been. There was a while, after I took on my own farm, when my family would be here all the time, being noisy, running around screaming -- that was mostly Silvio and Nadia playing tag, although Lisa chasing Luis that one time after he dumped some iced water down her back was probably the loudest -- but somehow it's all just dropped away, and now I'm just a baracutey, I guess. The guy who lives alone. I think of Mom singing Compay Segundo at the top of her lungs, I think of my Voltron peeps and how lively things always were with them. Maybe I'm missing something. I feel ... unsettled.

My Altean marks pulse gently, soothingly, and I drift into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

I'm just feeding the chickens when Coran arrives in a screeching puff of dust.

"Greetings!" he coughs.

He's ridden in on a scooter -- it was the awkward stop on that which kicked up all the dust -- and he just avoids launching himself over the extra-large handlebars. It's great to see him. He's definitely his old self.

"New scooter?" I ask, as he grabs my right hand with both of his and pumps it up and down enthusiastically.

"Yes indeed. Pidge helped me design it -- she's worked out to use Balmeran micro-crystals for small things like this. It's excellent! It took me less than ninety doboshes to get here from the new Castle of Lions." The new Castle. He points over towards Brown Mountain, as the locals call the biggest hill hereabouts; I guess it's over on the other side. Makes sense, as the biggest patch of empty land anywhere nearby.

"It only took me about sixty to walk it," says Keith, who's just come out on the porch.

"But the elegance of the scooter! The grace! I can see them taking off. Millions will want one."

"Sounds like a great side-project," says Keith, unconvincingly. "But how about you tell Lance why we're here."

"Err, yes, of course."

We walk inside, and I get Coran a glass of water. He's still coughing from the dust.

"Well," he begins, with one final throat-clearing harrumph. "We wanted to see how much of the Castle of Lions we could reconstruct. There was so much still to learn from it. So I tried to remember whatever I could of my grandfather's design, even when I didn't really understand it, and the Holts helped fill in the rest. A wonderful mix of Altean and Earth technology."

I wonder how similar it is, and what memories it will bring back. There are so many, a lot of them good, some that are more painful.

Coran is continuing. "We've taken it out for a few test runs, and it works brilliantly. Mostly. Three times now, it's taken us to the planet Pollux, and we don't know why. Commander Holt has a new teluduv prototype that we've installed in the Castle, and it doesn't need the energy of sacred Alteans to work, but when my own Altean energy touches the scaultrite lenses, we end up above Pollux." He looks at me. "I don't know why. Princess Allura was always the one who operated the teluduv, and I'm no Princess Allura."

No one is.

Keith clears his throat. "We think the Castle is detecting some kind of threat on Pollux related to scaultrite crystals. Or the Balmera. Or Altea. Actually, we don't know. But we do know some giant sinkholes have started appearing, and some cities are in danger, so the Blade of Marmora are headed there to help with relief operations."

"And we thought your Altean marks might help us figure out what the new Castle wants and what's going on on Pollux," Coran finishes. The Altean marks that Allura gave me, he doesn't say.

I'm silent for a while. Do I want this? I don't know.

I look up to see Keith watching me. "We'd help a lot of people," he says.

"OK," I reply.

##

Inside, I pack a few things, enough to last me a couple of days, and leave a note for Jack. There's nothing important coming up, so Jack will be able to handle the farm by himself. Sometimes I wonder if I need to be here at all.

We decide to take my truck, in spite of Coran's assurances that we'd be perfectly comfortable, all three of us, on the scooter. Very large handlebars, he pointed out; was he suggesting one of us should ride on them? Whatever, no chance of that. Instead, the scooter's in the cargo bed and the three of us in the truck's front bench seat. Coran's leaning out the passenger window, waiting for the Castle to come into view. The curve of the road finally brings us into sight of it.

"And voila, there she is."

It's not as big as the original Castle, although still huge. It sits in the field, squat and crouching, looking not much at all like the original. Odd bumps dot its upper surface.

"More like the Castle of Frogs," I say.

"Well," huffs Coran, "perhaps I do not have my grandfather's elegance of design, but --"

"It's great," says Keith. "Very functional."

##

"So you'll recognize the bridge," says Coran once we're inside, with a sweeping gesture of his arm to encompass it all. "It's as close to the original as we could make it."

"Does that include that holographic projector thing so we can visualize where we're going?" I ask.

"No, unfortunately not."

"Far-sensors so we can check what's happening there?"

"Err, no."

"The Castle does have a pool like the original," says Keith. "Well, except this one is in the floor like a human pool, rather than the ceiling. Wanna swim?" he asks me, then turns to Coran. "He banned me from showering at his place."

"I did not!" I protest.

Keith's mouth twitches. "Come on." He walks towards the elevator, and I follow, frowning.

"Why are we going swimming? Are you just trying to intimidate me by taking off your shirt and being all, like, muscley now?" I say as the elevator doors ding open and we step inside.

Keith sighs. "No, Lance. I just thought a swim would be nice." He looks at his feet. "As for being all 'muscley'" -- his fingers do the air quotes -- "it's just that I've been on a rescue mission on a high-gravity planet with the Blade of Marmora for the last three months, so lifting even a pen is like, instant exercise." He looks up, reaches over and puts his hand on my right bicep, which automatically flexes. "Besides, you've got real farm muscles."

"Hey, no charity case compliments." I know what I do now is nothing like Keith's risky work, or like the adrenaline-pumping days of Voltron. But it's a different kind of valuable, right? Even if sometimes I feel like I've lost some part of myself, that something's vanished from my life. I don't want pity, though.

"No, really. You could totally take me in a fight, one hundred percent."

We get changed in our rooms and head up to the pool. It does look good. I sit on the edge, legs dangling in. It's tranquil.

Until there's a massive shove in the middle of my back, and I'm catapulted into the center of the pool. When I come up for air, I hear Keith cackling and yelling out, "Sucker! It wasn't a charity case compliment, it was lulling you into a false sense of security!" Then he launches himself into the pool with a running cannonball.

##

While we were swimming Coran took the Castle up out of the atmosphere, and now we're back on the bridge for Coran to try out the navigation, to see if the Castle goes yet again to this planet Pollux. He stands at the teluduv console and scrunches his face up ... nothing happens. He scrunches some more. Still nothing.

"Maybe you need to scrunch up something else. Your shoulders? Your butt?" I suggest.

"Shush," says Coran. But he does do some extra scrunching so that he looks like Hetty about to lay an egg. And through the viewscreen we see a tiny wormhole starting up.

"It's working!" says Keith. "Keep it up, Coran."

The wormhole gradually expands, the circle of blue lightning getting brighter and the old symbols taking shape, until it's finally large enough for a fatigued-looking Coran to steer the Castle through it.

On the other side we're hovering above a planet that's similar to blue-green Earth, but probably a bit smaller, and with more land.

And then suddenly we're not hovering, we're plunging. The Castle is accelerating towards the planet, which is rapidly filling more and more of the viewscreen. Oh quiznakquiznakquiznak -- there's screaming -- it's not Keith, it's not Coran -- oh, it's me, not screaming, really, just vocalizing that there's a problem and oh quiznakquiznakquiznakquiznak --

My Altean marks start glowing, and suddenly I'm calm. We're still plunging, but I'm calm. Coran is wrestling with the controls, and I go to see if I can help him at all, but he manages to pull us up by himself, and we re-ascend into space.

"What was that?!" gasps out Keith.

Coran slumps against the console. "I have no idea. But if it happens again, I'm not sure I'll be able to pull us out of it a second time."

##

We all decide to have a drink in the Castle kitchen, even though there's a chance that we could start to plummet again at any minute. But we can't just wait on the bridge, just in case it happens.

When our heart rates are back to normal -- mine is, at least -- we return to the bridge. Through the viewscreen the planet all looks normal. Or it does until Keith points out one of the sinkholes, the most recent and the largest, visible even from up here.

"That's what we're worried about," he says. "You can see it's worryingly close to population centers." I can see the western edge of a large city sitting way too close to that giant hole.

"Is it growing?" I ask.

Keith shakes his head. "Luckily, it doesn't seem to be. But they've started appearing at random, according to the local inhabitants. And we don't know why they are, or why the Castle's been bringing us here."

"I thought," Coran says to me, "that you could try the console. See if it responds to you, or at least your Altean marks."

I feel very dubious about that.

"We don't have any other ideas," says Keith, looking at my no-doubt doubtful face.

"OK." I shrug, and walk over to the console. "What do I do?"

"Try scrunching up your butt," suggests Keith.

"Ha ha. Coran? You're obviously the only one I might get a sensible answer out of."

"Well, first I visualize the scaultrite crystals. I remember when I had to clean them as a young cadet, one of my many regular cleaning tasks, and good discipline it was too ..."

My mind drifts off as he talks. Maybe I should have let Keith offer more concrete advice, even if it was in the form of insults. Although I don't see why I should put up with those insults. If anything does happen, it will be me saving _his_ butt --

"Hey!" interrupts Keith excitedly. "Your Altean marks have started to glow, and so has the console."

"And," adds Coran, "through the viewscreen the depths of the sinkhole seem to be glowing the same way." The sinkhole seems to pulse in time with the Castle, but with a deeper light. "I knew these sinkholes couldn't be just ordinary phenomena! Marvelous! Well done Lance."

That was completely unexpected, but of course, I won't say that out loud. "Yeah, a round of applause for Lancey Lance. Any time you're ready," I say, looking pointedly at Keith.

##

We decide Keith and I should go down and investigate this sinkhole. Taking the Castleship down feels dangerous to all of us, and apparently the particle barrier shield is one of the things that hasn't been re-created to the level of the original, so Coran will stay with the Castle, and Keith and I will fly a shuttle down.

Coran makes up a pack each for us with some useful items. "High tensile strength rope, drinks, quick energy rations, and" -- he holds up a six-inch-long cylinder -- "a new Balmeran micro-crystal torch that Pidge has just developed. It's a bright light for such a compact torch, perfect for a giant cave." He illustrates the claim by switching it on, and even in the well-lit bridge it looks bright.

I'm still blinking when he turns it off.

"Right then, ready?" Keith asks me. I nod. "So I'll fly us down to --"

"Wait, _you'll_ fly us down? Why you?"

"OK, you can fly us down if you like." He pauses. "It is kind of a cargo shuttle anyway."

"Grrr." I don't know what's happened to new, improved, tranquil Lance. Three years of farming and passing along a message of universal peace and wistfully smelling juniberry flowers. And now Keith is here and getting right under my skin.

"OK fly-boy, let's go." Keith slaps me on the shoulder as he strides past. Grrrrrrrr.

##

We land a safe distance away from the hole. There's silence as we walk towards the edge, just some huffing and puffing as we make our way over a series of large boulders. At the edge there are a couple of large deep-rooted trees, which hopefully aren't going to fall into the hole any time soon. They're our best candidates for anchors for our ropes.

We lower ourselves slowly, slowly past the lip of the edge and down into the hole. The sides of the hole are steep at first, and then fan out to make a spherical cave that's even larger than you'd expect from a sinkhole of this size. The Balmera micro-crystal torches come in handy here, doing a good job of lighting up the space. I aim mine down to avoid blinding Keith, and he does the same. And with the torch beams illuminating the bottom of the hole, I spot a glittering, a mix of blue and purple, that seems to spread the longer I shine it in that direction.

"Keith," I call.

He looks in the direction of my torch. "Well spotted," he says. "What do you think it is?"

"No idea," I say.

"So let's find out," says Keith, lowering himself down further.

As we get close to the bottom it becomes clear that it's a mix of scaultrite lenses and Galra crystals. There's no obvious pattern to them. Watching them a little longer, it seems like a pulse from a Galra crystal will set off an answering pulse in the lenses.

"How did these get down here?" I wonder aloud.

"I don't know," replies Keith. "Maybe it was a Galra storage facility. Maybe they were trying to work out how to activate the lenses with Galra crystals. Coran might have an idea."

When we call him on our communicator, he does have an idea. "It could be that the Galra Empire was trying to develop a new kind of wormhole technology that didn't use magic. They'd power the lenses with Galra crystals instead. And perhaps these stored ones somehow spontaneously generated their own nano-wormholes, leading to the sinkholes."

Now that we know to look for scaultrite lenses and Galra crystals resonating together, Keith says that the Blade of Marmora can help find them anywhere on Pollux to prevent future sinkholes. They're already on-world, helping track down residents of a village that was destroyed by one, and building emergency accommodation for them.

Coran suggests we take a few of the lenses and crystals to study. We'll need a special containment box so they don't accidentally go off, which will mean an extra trip up to the Castleship and back, but that's fine. That Mission Accomplished feeling makes everything seem like no effort.


	3. Chapter 3

Surprisingly, Keith comes back to my farm with me. Apparently around here is a great place for Coran to test something-or-other about the new Castle, and it will help if I'm around to examine these lenses and crystals more closely. Plus Keith wants to say hello to Kaltenecker.

I'm making a coffee, and go to ask Keith if he'd like one. The door to the spare room is ajar, and I see he's talking via his communicator. His back is to the door, so the communicator's hologram is facing me. It's Shiro, and he looks happy, smiling as he's talking, although I can't hear any words distinctly. Huh. So Keith keeps in contact with Shiro too.

Maybe I'm the odd one out in staying solo.

I don't want to interrupt or listen in, so I go have my coffee on the porch, rocking slowly in my chair.

##

There's a delegation from the Galaxy Garrison arriving, along with a few representatives of the Blade of Marmora and someone from the Galra delegation to the Galactic Coalition -- I'd expected more Galrans, but apparently they're busy keeping a lid on simmering discontent in the transition from empire to democracy. This last week has seen more activity in this sleepy quadrant than, well, at least since I've been here. One item on the agenda will be to put together a list of potentially dangerous disused Galra Empire depots and have teams investigate them, and if necessary neutralize anything dangerous.

But apparently the first item on the agenda is a dinner dance for all the visitors.

I dunno. It used to be my kind of thing, but now ... I dunno. Maybe I'll skip out on it.

I can actually be useful by going to investigate the sample we brought back from Pollux. Keith agrees that's a good idea, so we hop in my truck. "To the frog-ship," I say, and Keith chuckles. On the way there he's tapping his fingers on the open windowframe -- it's a rhythmic tapping, so it's probably to some internal music, rather than because he's impatient.

Inside the ship, Coran gives us the samples box and we take it to a large internal room. The room has nothing at all in it, no chairs or tables or equipment. It doesn't matter then if something goes a bit wrong, says Coran. We build a pedestal in the center of the room out of some empty crates in one of the holds, to put the crystals on.

Keith and I take out one of the Galra crystals and six of the lenses, and space them out on top of our makeshift pedestal. Then we look at them. And look a bit longer.

"Do some scrunching," says Keith.

"Don't say it."

"You can scrunch whatever you like. No pressure from me."

I try to get into the same frame of mind as before. What was that frame of mind?

I don't know how long I spend staring at the lenses, focusing on them. Light up! I think at them. Do something! At one point I realize that I'm not actually seeing them any more, or anything really, just a kind of blur. And I'm not passing out, and not swooning -- definitely not swooning -- but my legs are slowly crumpling.

Keith catches me.

I don't really know how to explain what happened, but I'm sort of in a daze and on autopilot, and Old Lance comes through. "Can't stop yourself holding me in your arms? Are we having another bonding moment?"

My head hits the deck as Keith drops me. "Oww!"

"Sorry," mumbles Keith. Well, at least it wasn't as far as if I'd fallen from standing up.

##

So no progress with the lenses, but I'm not discouraged. I'll try again tomorrow.

Right now I'm dawdling trying to decide what to wear -- I'm not sure if my total lack of enthusiasm is from the thwack on the head or more fundamental -- and eventually just settle on the first shirt I pick with my eyes closed that has buttons, a pair of blue pants and brown boots. I'm sitting on my bed when Keith calls out "Time to go!"; I drag myself out the door and into the truck.

We're fairly quiet in the truck. Keith's wearing all black, a high-collared shirt and shiny boots. Serious, but of course, it suits the Black Paladin. Looks good.

The event is being held in the village hall that's the closest gathering point for all the nearby farms. It seems like an odd place for the Blade of Marmora, the Galaxy Garrison and representatives of the Galra to meet to discuss strategy, but who knows. Maybe there really is some important reason for the new Castle to be here.

The music reaches us well before we get near the door, and then the hubbub of a pretty big crowd. It's lively, music and crowd both, and when we open the door the hall is close to packed.

Keith is grabbed by one of the Blade almost as soon as he gets in the door. Some strategy discussion already, it looks like. I move around the room, pinching food from the trays that are circulating. I think one of the trays even has some of my goat cheese. I see a few people I recognize by sight, but no one I know well. None of the other Paladins, of course -- they'd have no reason to be here -- but I don't know the Blade or Garrison folks either.

One of them that I do vaguely recognize, however, comes over to me.

"Hi, I'm Ellie," she says.

I smile at her. "Lance."

"I know," she says. "We met once at the Galaxy Garrison."

"Sorry," I say, mentally smacking myself in the head. "I'm hopeless with --"

She laughs. "No, don't be sorry. You'd just come back from a mission, and I was only a super-junior cadet."

Old Lance almost says, "But I'm sure I wouldn't have forgotten a face like yours." But I don't say that. I don't know if it's just New Lance, or the memory of Allura, or something else.

I don't have time to think about that -- fortunately, because I could go round in circles forever with it -- as Ellie's pretty engaging. She's a newly qualified comms officer, comes from a big and entertaining family, and likes dancing.

"I heard you can dance," she says.

Technically I guess it's true. Growing up we learned kid versions of the mambo and the bolero -- the Cuban trova style, of course -- and just movement generally. It's been a long time since I checked to see if my body remembers it. But Ellie pulls me onto the floor, so I have no option but to find out. Fortunately, it's still there.

There are a few other dancers, and we rotate slowly around the small space that's been left open. As we do, I see that Coran's arrived late, as expected, and is drinking some punch while talking to a Garrison officer. And I see Keith against the wall, arms crossed, watching me. He must have finished his strategy discussion. I can't read his expression.

##

Our plan is to go back to the Castle and stay there the night. That will make it easier to get straight on with more experiments on the lenses in the morning.

I say goodnight to Ellie.

"Thanks for an enjoyable evening," she says with a dimpled smile. "I really enjoyed the dancing."

"So did I."

"Maybe we could do some more while I'm still here," she offers.

"Sure," I say, but it's more politeness than anything else. It was nice, but not more. "I'm sure we'll run into each other again soon."

She kisses me on the cheek, and I join Keith and Coran by my truck.

"You dance well, my boy," says Coran as we start off. "I remember when I was young on Altea ..." We don't have to listen for too long to his reminiscences, as he starts to nod off. I guess that's not surprising when you're over 10,000 years old -- although to be fair, I know he was working on the Castle from early this morning, which would be tiring for anyone.

It's silent for a while -- apart from Coran's gentle snores -- when I say to Keith, "I thought Acxa might come. You know, since this will be a major exercise for the Blade of Marmora." And also because everyone expected the two of you to get together, I don't say.

"No. She's busy."

That's abrupt. Maybe he's upset. "You weren't expecting her?" Keith says nothing. "Is that why you got your hair cut? Which by the way does look good and not at all like it was done with shears."

"For Pete's sake!" Keith bursts out. Then he subsides to muttering, most of which I don't get, except for an occasional word which sounds like "clueless". I don't ask.

##

Back at the Castle we wake up Coran -- he shakes his head a few times and pretends he wasn't asleep at all -- and then Keith goes straight to his room. I find mine -- just like in the original Castle, it's next to Keith's -- and sit on the bed. It's not too different from the old sleeping chambers, mostly white with a few glowing lights.

I wonder if I should apologize to Keith. I mean, I didn't mean to upset him about Acxa.

I shouldn't.

I should.

Just like the last time I almost interrupted him in his room, Keith's door is ajar and he's using the communicator. But this time instead of Shiro it's my sister Veronica that he's talking to. And this time I don't decide to be polite and leave them to their conversation because I hear Veronica say the name "Ellie". This time I push open the door and say, "What?!"

Veronica's hologram turns and looks at me, and so does Keith, swiveling in his chair. "Hi baby bro," she says, a touch nervously and rightly so.

"So, this Ellie from the Galaxy Garrison," I say. "Did you set this up?"

"No! No. Not exactly," Veronica says. "I was just telling her that you'd been alone for a while and might like some company, and --"

"I don't want -- don't need -- ugh." I storm out of the room. What do they think they're doing? I certainly don't need random women thrown at me. Keith glances at Veronica's hologram and then follows me out the door.

"And you!" I say to Keith. "How could you go along with this?"

"Hey," he says, holding his hands up, palms towards me. "This wasn't my idea. At all. I only just found out about it."

"But you were pretty buddy-buddy with my sister. How long's that been going on?"

He doesn't make eye contact. "We're just, you know, worried about you."

"Worried?! There's nothing to be worried about! I'm fine here with my farm and my chickens and --" Then my Altean marks start their pulsing, and suddenly I'm calm. Why am I making a big deal of this? They'll all leave again soon, and everything will go back to normal.

I've started walking away without realizing it when Keith grabs me by the shoulder and spins me back to face him. Coran's behind him now. He must have heard the shouting.

"_This_ is why I'm worried," says Keith. "Your -- it looks like your Altean marks really affect your personality, like, like, a sedative or something that drains the energy out of you. You're not your old self --" Coran is nodding, but if there's some kind of effect from them it wears off right away, because I'm furious.

"Allura left them as her last gift for me to remember her. It's the last part of her here in this life. Are you saying she's some kind of psychic vampire-ghoul? Some psychic vampire-ghoul-even-worse-thing-I-can't-think-of-the-name-of? You're just jealous because she was so good and pure and and --"

Keith is silent in the face of my anger, but Coran interjects with a "No!" He's shaking his head from side to side. "You know the respect I have for Princess Allura, and that will never change. But sometimes Altean alchemy is imperfect -- remember how the AI of King Alfor was unintentionally corrupted. Nothing is perfect, Lance."

None of that makes me less angry. But what does make me less angry is the renewed pulsing of my Altean marks, when once again I'm suddenly calm. And that's what, in a calm and distant and intellectual way, finally scares me. I calmly walk the few feet to my sleep chamber, calmly close the door, and calmly barricade the door with the room's only chair.

##

Later, there's a soft knock at the door. "Lance?" It's Keith.

I don't answer.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning I corner Coran by himself in the engineering bay, tinkering with the Castle's main power couplings.

"So, Coran: why exactly is the Castle here, right near my farm, of all the places in the galaxy? And the meeting of these high-powered representatives of the Blade of Marmora and the Galactic Coalition, et cetera, et cetera."

"Oh. Err. Keith thought -- I mean, you were -- err. That is. You know. The Coalition. The Blade. Of Marmora. Reasons."

It's pretty easy to read between the lines of this incoherent speech. It's like there's a giant flashing sign announcing it -- Lance's farm: Pity Central.

I guess Keith's heart is in the right place, and there's no sign he's told anyone here why this out-of-the-way location is the place to discuss important intergalactic business, but ...

... but it's not like it can change anything. Old Lance is gone. Now there's only New Lance with his possibly malfunctioning Altean face marks.

##

Later on in the morning all three of us are on the bridge. 

"I thought," Coran says from over near the console, "now that Pollux isn't a problem any longer, I'd see where the Castle takes us now. If anywhere. It might just go where we actually want to go." This would be instead of continuing with our original plan, where I try out my Altean energies on the lenses we collected from Pollux. It's clear that we all want to avoid me activating my Altean marks, each of us for our own reasons.

"Sure thing," I say. Keith nods his head in decisive agreement.

So Coran steps up, and this time there's no scrunching required. The wormhole builds straight away, and we're off.

On the other side, we're above a planet. It's not Pollux -- too big, wrong colours. This planet's more dull red and brown, desert and rock. There's little water, just a few isolated seas.

"Well, the Castle has hijacked us again," says Coran. "I was aiming for the Space Mall, but this is obviously not it. I don't know where we are this time."  
Coran has the Castle scan the land for anything interesting. "I was hoping to do a spot of shopping," he mutters. Keith and I just stand around while this is happening, not looking at each other.

Finally the scan is complete. "It looks like there's very little on the planet's surface," says Coran. "Just windswept rock and dust. The Castle has only found one structure that might have been constructed." The viewscreen focuses on this structure. "There's no energy signature from it. It could be an abandoned base."

"Could be," says Keith. "It looks Galran. Maybe it has some more lenses and crystals, and that's why the Castle brought us here." No one asks me to try out my Altean marks to see if we get the same answering pulse as on Pollux, and I don't offer.

"It looks safe enough," says Coran. "So how about I take the Castle down, and the two of you go and check out the base."

We go with that plan. This time there's not much to prepare, with no sinkholes to cavedive into. Just some basic tools and our Balmeran micro-crystal torches -- there may still be residual power in the base, but we wouldn't want to count on it -- and we're ready to go.

##

To get to the base, Keith and I take Coran's scooter. It's uncomfortable, and not just because of how tightly we're squeezed onto it. Fortunately, Keith has managed to coax more speed out of the scooter than Coran did -- it means we'll get there faster, and it also means that the sound of the air rushing past us makes conversation impossible.

##

The outer door is locked.

"Did they close up when they left?" I wonder out loud.

Keith shrugs and fiddles with a lockpick -- his part-Galran palmprint hasn't given us access here. It's not long before there's a click and we're in.

The first room is a large storage space. We must have come through the back door. It's dark, so we do have to use the torches. There's some dust but not too much, so maybe it hasn't been abandoned for long.

The next door isn't locked, and we step into another giant room of unclear purpose. We do see a blue-purple shining from the far side -- maybe that is why the Castle brought us here, another cache of scaultrite and Galra crystals. But we don't have time to look, because as soon as we're through the door our arms are grabbed from behind and held tightly. Whoever they are must have been waiting beside the door. We struggle, but there are several of them, and they're strong. We can't get free.

A light comes on. Our captors are Galran. And one steps out from among them, broader and with a jaw that seems to be made of metal. He stands in front of us. "I am Rizlek!" he booms.

"Who?" I say. One of my captors punches me in the gut, and I double over.

"Rizlek. I was a loyal lieutenant of Emperor Zarkon. And you I know," he says to Keith. "You are the half-breed who led the Galrans away from the way of strength to the path of weakness." He spits at Keith's feet. "Not all of us wanted to leave behind the Empire, when we were the mightiest in the galaxy." The Galrans holding us mutter in agreement, and pull our arms tighter. "Some of us hold true to the old ways." The muttering grows louder. "And you will help us return to them. You might have destroyed our experimental site on Pollux, but we are ready, here and now, with new weapons to reclaim the Empire. All that remains is to find out what those traitorous weaklings, the Blade of Marmora, are doing now."

Keith goes to say something, but Rizlek says, "Take them away and tie them up," and leaves.

##

We're taken back outside again to an area where there are some large storage crates, and we're tied to those. There's a camera pointed in our direction, presumably transmitting whatever we do to Rizlek.

Keith and I look at each other.

##

Time passes.

There's not much we can do with the camera trained on us. Definitely not make plans to escape. Keith's fidgeting. I try to subtly wriggle my hands out of the ropes, but it's probably totally obvious to the camera while we're not talking or otherwise being distracting, so I say the first thing that comes into my head.

"You know, I don't know why the Galran did cross the road. What's the punchline?" I twist my hands some more, but the rope's still not budging.

Keith exhales loudly, and his head thunks back against the crate he's tied to. "Rizlek!" he calls in the direction of the camera. "RIZLEK!!" He looks away from me.

The door from the base slides open more quickly than I'd expected, and Rizlek joins us again. "What is it, half-breed?" he says.

"I've realized you were right," says Keith. What?? "I mean, I've been thinking about it for a while. I understand now I had all these wrong-headed ideas about the Galrans changing from an empire to a democracy. Which is totally a human idea, not suited at all to Galrans. And humans like this clown here next to me --"

"Hey!" I object.

"-- make me realize that only the Galran side of me is worthy. So I've decided to join you. All this human next to me is good for is to hunt down, like Emperor Zarkon used to do with his losing gladiators."

"You think we should hunt him?" sneers Rizlek. "I untie you both and we hunt him together, and then you stab me in the back? What kind of fool do you think I am?"

"If that were my plan, you'd obviously be too smart for it. No, you shouldn't trust me. I stay tied up, of course. I'll prove myself to you after you've hunted this irritating human."

Rizlek looks like he's actually considering it. Trying to work out what risk a defenceless me could pose.

It looks like his conclusion is that I won't be much risk, because he unties me, keeping a close eye on my hands and feet. Even if my circulation being cut off hadn't left me with pins and needles, I doubt I could take him in hand-to-hand combat. Plus he has a gun, of course.

"Rizlek," says Keith.

Rizlek turns towards Keith, and that's when Keith flicks on the Balmeran micro-crystal torch still clipped to his belt and snaps it up towards Rizlek's face. The aim's not great with his hands being bound, but the beam definitely passes across Rizlek's eyes, because he's clearly blinded. And Keith follows it up by kicking dust into Rizlek's face that he'd unobtrusively piled up while -- so I'd thought -- fidgeting.

"Run, Lance!" Keith yells to me.

What to do? I don't want to leave Keith, but probably my only chance of getting help for him is reaching the Castle. I have only a second to decide, I'm in fight-or-flight. And that's when my Altean marks kick in, calming, soothing, shutting down the adrenaline.

No. No! Not with Keith right here and in danger.

And immediately I'm not calm. I'm alive and surging with energy. I'm filled with the fire that made me the pilot of the Red Lion.

And from behind me I hear that roar I haven't heard in years.

##

Rizlek clearly hears the roar too, even if he still can't see properly, and staggers his way back through the base door. I look around hurriedly to see if I can find anything to cut Keith's rope, but the Red Lion solves the problem by smashing the crate Keith is tied to with its front paw.

And now the Black Lion is coming in to land. The tables are turned!

I turn to Keith to ask if he knows what's going on, but he just says "Quick! Into the Lions!" As if it still happens for him every day. I'd thought that the Lions had all left that last time we were all together; that we wouldn't see them again. But there's been that two years since then when I've had little contact with anyone, so who knows.

It's strange at first being buckled up and piloting my Lion in regular clothes, but soon it's like we'd never been apart. I do a little loop-the-loop for the sheer fun of being in Red again.

"Let's head back to the Castle," says Keith.

"Roger that."

In spite of the danger, my mind wanders. I remember that time on Garfle Warfle Snick, that weird game show dream we all shared. Keith voted for me to be the one freed that time too. Granted, it was because he said he didn't want to be stuck with me for all eternity. And this time he called me a clown. And irritating. But I'm beginning to think ...

"Heads up!" yells Keith.

Something that looks like a junkyard version of a Robeast is gaining on us from behind. I wonder if Rizlek has sacrificed himself to make the Robeast, or been sacrificed; or whether it's some other unsuspecting victim. The Robeast has the shape of a hyena, and it's huge, bigger than both of our Red and Black Lions together. The tables haven't turned after all, apparently.

Keith and I split, hoping that it will follow one of us, and the other can attack it from behind. But it ignores both of us, and heads in the same direction we were heading. Towards the Castle, with its weak-to-non-existent particle barrier.

Our Lions try to attack individually and together, but the Robeast swats us away. It looks like it's been put together from a bunch of Galra base scraps and whatever magic a rogue Galra Druid apprentice could pull together. It still is powerful, though. And it's still racing towards the Castle, with nothing we do stopping it.

What do we do? "Keith? Any ideas?" Time's running out. We can see the Castle on the horizon. Coran's not answering the messages we've sent, maybe because of atmospheric static, or maybe something worse has already happened.

"Maybe we can --"

As if in answer to a prayer, the other three Lions appear, gliding into the planet's atmosphere as if we'd arranged this meetup in advance. "Pidge?" I yell through my communicator. "Hunk?" More quietly, "Allura?"

Keith instantly takes advantage of it, calling out "Form Voltron!" And we do, that well-practised merging we've done so many times.

"Guys!" I call out over my communicator. "How did you know we needed you? You've come at just the right time." Can it possibly be Allura in Blue? If not, who is it?

There's silence.

Finally Keith says, "I can't detect anyone else inside the other Lions. I think it's just the Lions themselves who've come to help us." More silence. "It's just the two of us. I can't get Green or Yellow to activate the cannons or ... anything else to work. There's just you and the sword, Lance."

We have to help Coran. It will have to be enough.

And I think -- it can be. I've missed this, this meshing together, this sychronicity, being here at Keith's right hand. Now it's happening again, I feel a completeness. Now we can do whatever it takes.

Voltron puts on a burst of speed and we're catching up, catching up ... closer ... the Robeast is powering up a laser cannon ... if it's like the Robeast we fought just after Shiro had escaped from the Galra with the help of Ulaz, it could punch through even a fully operational Voltron shield; for the much more weakly defended new Castle, it would be a hot knife through butter. Keith's right. The sword of my Red Lion is the only option.

So I focus. Fire, flames leaping from the sword, farther than I've ever projected them before. The flames lick around the hyena Robeast, slowing it, pulling it towards us; and then we raise the sword, and hit, once, twice, slicing it back into the space junk it once was. Giant chunks of metal crash to the planet surface.

Yes! Yes. Coran's safe. The new Castle is OK. We're OK. Everything's OK. There's no longer this particular threat to the universe from this pocket of Galra holdouts, at least.

Voltron disassembles. The other three Lions fly off while Red and Blue drop us at the Castle, and then they go on their way too. I guess we'll get the Blade of Marmora to come in to mop up Rizlek's troops -- I know they're mostly doing humanitarian work now, but in two years they can't have changed too much from the fighting force they used to be.

We walk into the Castle to fill Coran in on what's happened.


	5. Chapter 5

Again, and a bit less unexpectedly than the last time, Keith comes back to the farm with me. We're late enough that Jack has gone home, and he's done most of the chores, but as there's still a lot of light left I take Keith around and point out some of the farm landmarks -- the clump of trees where the goats often end up, the stream that runs through one of the lower fields -- and get him to throw feed to the chickens. They will have already eaten with Jack, but they're greedy things, and this double dinner can just be a one-off special treat for them.

When I come back from the rounds of gate-checking, I find Keith in the barn with Kaltenecker. He looks up and gives me a smile while scratching her head. "Help with dinner?" I ask.

"Sure. You tell me what to do."

I set him to chopping green vegetables and onions -- he can be the one who cries this meal prep, and he does -- and I make rice and grill some pork. Mom would have marinated it overnight and used a dozen ingredients; I squeeze some lemon on it and add mint and let it sit for as long as it takes me to show Keith how not to slice his fingers off when using a kitchen knife.

Dinner's quiet; not bad-quiet, just quiet-quiet. I think we're both worn out after the past few days, although I'm kind of wired at the same time.

"Want to play a round of cards?" I suggest, after we've finished cleaning up.

Keith looks like he's thinking about it, but says, "Nah, I'm gonna crash."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

And as soon as my head hits the pillow, I do crash.

##

When I get up in the morning and wander out of my room, still in T-shirt and boxers, Keith's sitting at the table, dressed for the day, left hand tapping out a nervous staccato. Definitely not internal music. A coffee mug is already washed on the sink. His travel bag is next to the front door.

"Lance," he says, standing up and holding out his right hand to shake. "It's been good to catch up."

What? "You're leaving?"

"Yeah. Lots of things to do. The Blade. Of Marmora. The Coalition. So many things."

"Oh. You can't stay a few more days? It's not terrible having you here. Maybe even slightly better than not terrible."

"I can't stay." Keith looks at his feet, then at me. "You know, what I said about Allura -- I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to turn you against -- I would never --" He stops, starts again. "You were kind of right about one thing you said. I was jealous." He takes a breath. "She had you."

Things finally click into place. I understand now what Keith wants, what he's wanted for a long time. And I understand what I want. "I won't forget Allura." Keith's shaking his head: No, of course. "But you've always made me feel" -- I think of Keith with his serious leader face on, Keith cradling me when I've fallen, Keith insulting me, Keith shirtless after a shower -- "a lot of things." It's not how I felt with Allura, not at all; now, most of all I feel alive again, in a way I haven't since -- since I used to be around Keith, I realize. Then I suddenly worry -- this isn't Keith and Veronica and whoever else just trying to, as they think of it, cheer me up, is it? Just saying things to make me feel good about myself because they're worried I'm in a funk? "This staying a few extra days or -- maybe something more -- the offer's there, but I don't want this out of pity."

In response Keith closes the three steps between us and pulls me into a hug so tight that our knees are pressed together, and our shoulders. And all points in between. The seconds lengthen, stretch out.

I break the silence. "Is that a Balmeran micro-crystal torch in your pocket?"

"No."

"Oh." I guess it isn't pity I'm detecting then. When we kiss, our noses bash together and it's awkward, and then it isn't.

Fade to black.

##

I card my fingers through Keith's hair, his head lying on my thigh. The touch on the short back and sides makes him shiver.

"Will you grow your hair longer again?" I ask.

"You want me to?"

"Yep. Definitely." Tugging on his earlobe makes him shiver again. "You can be my Mullet-Boy."

He lifts his head to look at me. "No."

"My Mullet-Boy."

Keith sighs and lowers his head again, and I laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
